The Life of John Bunyan [Paperback] [2002] (Author) Edmund Venables M.A.

This etext was orginally prepared from the 1888 Walter Scott editionby David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, but will not be kept inan exact match with that edition as we make corrections/emendations.

The Life of John Bunyan

CHAPTER I.

John Bunyan, the author of the book which has probably passedthrough more editions, had a greater number of readers, and beentranslated into more languages than any other book in the Englishtongue, was born in the parish of Elstow, in Bedfordshire, in thelatter part of the year 1628, and was baptized in the parish churchof the village on the last day of November of that year.

The year of John Bunyan's birth was a momentous one both for thenation and for the Church of England. Charles I., by the extortedassent to the Petition of Right, had begun reluctantly to striphimself of the irresponsible authority he had claimed, and hadtaken the first step in the struggle between King and Parliamentwhich ended in the House of Commons seating itself in the place ofthe Sovereign. Wentworth (better known as Lord Strafford) hadfinally left the Commons, baffled in his nobly-conceived but vainhope of reconciling the monarch and his people, and having accepteda peerage and the promise of the Presidency of the Council of theNorth, was foreshadowing his policy of "Thorough," which wasdestined to bring both his own head and that of his weak master tothe block. The Remonstrance of Parliament against the tolerationof Roman Catholics and the growth of Arminianism, had beenpresented to the indignant king, who, wilfully blinded, had repliedto it by the promotion to high and lucrative posts in the Church ofthe very men against whom it was chiefly directed. The mostoutrageous upholders of the royal prerogative and the irresponsiblepower of the sovereign, Montagu and Mainwaring, had been presented,the one to the see of Chichester, the other - the impeached andcondemned of the Commons - to the rich living Montagu'sconsecration had vacated. Montaigne, the licenser of Mainwaring'sincriminated sermon, was raised to the Archbishopric of York, whileNeile and Laud, who were openly named in the Remonstrance as the"troublers of the English Israel," were rewarded respectively withthe rich see of Durham and the important and deeply-dyed Puritandiocese of London. Charles was steadily sowing the wind, anddestined to reap the whirlwind which was to sweep him from histhrone, and involve the monarchy and the Church in the sameoverthrow. Three months before Bunyan's birth Buckingham, on theeve of his departure for the beleaguered and famine-stricken cityof Rochelle, sanguinely hoping to conclude a peace with the Frenchking beneath its walls, had been struck down by the knife of afanatic, to the undisguised joy of the majority of the nation,bequeathing a legacy of failure and disgrace in the fall of theProtestant stronghold on which the eyes of Europe had been so longanxiously fixed.

The year was closing gloomily, with ominous forecasts of the cominghurricane, when the babe who was destined to leave so imperishablea name in English literature, first saw the light in an humblecottage in an obscure Bedfordshire village. His father, ThomasBunyan, though styling himself in his will by the more dignifiedtitle of "brazier," was more properly what is known as a "tinker";"a mender of pots and kettles," according to Bunyan's contemporarybiographer, Charles Doe. He was not, however, a mere tramp orvagrant, as travelling tinkers were and usually are still, muchless a disreputable sot, a counterpart of Shakespeare's ChristopherSly, but a man with a recognized calling, having a settled home andan acknowledged position in the village community of Elstow. Thefamily was of long standing there, but had for some generationsbeen going down in the world. Bunyan's grandfather, Thomas Bunyan,as we learn from his still extant will, carried on the occupationof a "petty chapman," or small retail dealer, in his own freeholdcottage, which he bequeathed, "with its appurtenances," to hissecond wife, Ann, to descend, after her death, to her stepson, hisnamesake, Thomas, and her own son Edward, in equal shares. Thiscottage, which was probably John Bunyan's birthplace, persistenttradition, confirmed by the testimony of local names, warrants usin placing near the hamlet of Harrowden, a mile to the east of thevillage of Elstow, at a place long called "Bunyan's End," where twofields are still called by the name of "Bunyans" and "FurtherBunyans." This small freehold appears to have been all thatremained, at the death of John Bunyan's grandfather, of a propertyonce considerable enough to have given the name of its possessor tothe whole locality.

The family of Buingnon, Bunyun, Buniun, Boynon, Bonyon, or Binyan(the name is found spelt in no fewer than thirty-four differentways, of which the now-established form, Bunyan, is almost theleast frequent) is one that had established itself in Bedfordshirefrom very early times. The first place in connection with whichthe name appears is Pulloxhill, about nine miles from Elstow. In1199, the year of King John's accession, the Bunyans had approachedstill nearer to that parish. One William Bunion held land atWilstead, not more than a mile off. In 1327, the first year ofEdward III., one of the same name, probably his descendant, WilliamBoynon, is found actually living at Harrowden, close to the spotwhich popular tradition names as John Bunyan's birthplace, and wasthe owner of property there. We have no further notices of theBunyans of Elstow till the sixteenth century. We then find themgreatly fallen. Their ancestral property seems little by little tohave passed into other hands, until in 1542 nothing was left but "amessuage and pightell (1) with the appurtenances, and nine acres ofland." This small residue other entries on the Court Rolls show tohave been still further diminished by sale. The field alreadyreferred to, known as "Bonyon's End," was sold by "Thomas Bonyon,of Elstow, labourer," son of William Bonyon, the said Thomas andhis wife being the keepers of a small road-side inn, at which theirovercharges for their home-baked bread and home-brewed beer werecontinually bringing them into trouble with the petty local courtsof the day. Thomas Bunyan, John Bunyan's father, was born in thelast days of Elizabeth, and was baptized February 24, 1603, exactlya month before the great queen passed away. The mother of theimmortal Dreamer was one Margaret Bentley, who, like her husband,was a native of Elstow and only a few months his junior. Thedetails of her mother's will, which is still extant, drawn up bythe vicar of Elstow, prove that, like her husband, she did not, inthe words of Bunyan's latest and most complete biographer, the Rev.Dr. Brown, "come of the very squalid poor, but of people who,though humble in station, were yet decent and worthy in theirways." John Bunyan's mother was his father's second wife. TheBunyans were given to marrying early, and speedily consoledthemselves on the loss of one wife with the companionship of asuccessor. Bunyan's grandmother cannot have died before February24, 1603, the date of his father's baptism. But before the yearwas out his grandfather had married again. His father, too, hadnot completed his twentieth year when he married his first wife,Anne Pinney, January 10, 1623. She died in 1627, apparentlywithout any surviving children, and before the year was half-waythrough, on the 23rd of the following May, he was married a secondtime to Margaret Bentley. At the end of seventeen years ThomasBunyan was again left a widower, and within two months, withgrossly indecent haste, he filled the vacant place with a thirdwife. Bunyan himself cannot have been much more than twenty whenhe married. We have no particulars of the death of his first wife.But he had been married two years to his noble-minded second wifeat the time of the assizes in 1661, and the ages of his children byhis first wife would indicate that no long interval elapsed betweenhis being left a widower and his second marriage.

Elstow, which, as the birthplace of the author of "The Pilgrim'sProgress," has gained a world-wide celebrity, is a quiet littlevillage, which, though not much more than a mile from the populousand busy town of Bedford, yet, lying aside from the main stream ofmodern life, preserves its old-world look to an unusual degree.Its name in its original form of "Helen-stow," or "Ellen-stow," theSTOW or stockaded place of St. Helena, is derived from aBenedictine nunnery founded in 1078 by Judith, niece of William theConqueror, the traitorous wife of the judicially murdered Waltheof,Earl of Huntingdon, in honour of the mother of the EmperorConstantine. The parish church, so intimately connected withBunyan's personal history, is a fragment of the church of thenunnery, with a detached campanile, or "steeple-house," built tocontain the bells after the destruction of the central tower andchoir of the conventual church. Few villages are so littlemodernized as Elstow. The old half-timbered cottages withoverhanging storeys, peaked dormers, and gabled porches, tapestriedwith roses and honeysuckles, must be much what they were inBunyan's days. A village street, with detached cottages standingin gardens gay with the homely flowers John Bunyan knew and loved,leads to the village green, fringed with churchyard elms, in themiddle of which is the pedestal or stump of the market-cross, andat the upper end of the old "Moot Hall," a quaint brick and timberbuilding, with a projecting upper storey, a good example of thedomestic architecture of the fifteenth century, originally,perhaps, the Guesten-Hall of the adjacent nunnery, and afterwardsthe Court House of the manor when lay-lords had succeeded theabbesses - "the scene," writes Dr. Brown "of village festivities,statute hirings, and all the public occasions of village life."The whole spot and its surroundings can be but little altered fromthe time when our hero was the ringleader of the youth of the placein the dances on the greensward, which he tells us he found it sohard to give up, and in "tip-cat," and the other innocent gameswhich his diseased conscience afterwards regarded as "ungodlypractices." One may almost see the hole from which he was going tostrike his "cat" that memorable Sunday afternoon when he silencedthe inward voice which rebuked him for his sins, and "returneddesperately to his sport again." On the south side of the green,as we have said, stands the church, a fine though somewhat rudefragment of the chapel of the nunnery curtailed at both ends, ofNorman and Early English date, which, with its detached bell tower,was the scene of some of the fierce spiritual conflicts so vividlydepicted by Bunyan in his "Grace Abounding." On entering everyobject speaks of Bunyan. The pulpit - if it has survived therecent restoration - is the same from which Christopher Hall, thethen "Parson" of Elstow, preached the sermon which first awoke hissleeping conscience. The font is that in which he was baptized, aswere also his father and mother and remoter progenitors, as well ashis children, Mary, his dearly-loved blind child, on July 20, 1650,and her younger sister, Elizabeth, on April 14, 1654. An old oakenbench, polished by the hands of thousands of visitors attracted tothe village church by the fame of the tinker of Elstow, istraditionally shown as the seat he used to occupy when he "went tochurch twice a day, and that, too, with the foremost counting allthings holy that were therein contained." The five bells whichhang in the belfry are the same in which Bunyan so much delighted,the fourth bell, tradition says, being that he was used to ring.The rough flagged floor, "all worn and broken with the hobnailedboots of generations of ringers," remains undisturbed. One cannotsee the door, set in its solid masonry, without recalling thefigure of Bunyan standing in it, after conscience, "beginning to betender," told him that "such practice was but vain," but yet unableto deny himself the pleasure of seeing others ring, hoping that,"if a bell should fall," he could "slip out" safely "behind thethick walls," and so "be preserved notwithstanding." Behind thechurch, on the south side, stand some picturesque ivy-clad remainsof the once stately mansion of the Hillersdons, erected on the siteof the nunnery buildings in the early part of the seventeenthcentury, with a porch attributed to Inigo Jones, which may havegiven Bunyan the first idea of "the very stately Palace, the nameof which was Beautiful."

The cottage where Bunyan was born, between the two brooks in thefields at Harrowden, has been so long destroyed that even theknowledge of its site has passed away. That in which he lived forsix years (1649-1655) after his first marriage, and where hischildren were born, is still standing in the village street, butmodern reparations have robbed it of all interest.

From this description of the surroundings among which Bunyan passedthe earliest and most impressionable years of his life, we pass tothe subject of our biography himself. The notion that Bunyan wasof gipsy descent, which was not entirely rejected by Sir WalterScott, and which has more recently received elaborate support fromwriters on the other side of the Atlantic, may be pronouncedabsolutely baseless. Even if Bunyan's inquiry of his father"whether the family was of Israelitish descent or no," which hasbeen so strangely pressed into the service of the theory, could besupposed to have anything to do with the matter, the decidednegative with which his question was met - "he told me, 'No, wewere not'" - would, one would have thought, have settled the point.But some fictions die hard. However low the family had sunk, sothat in his own words, "his father's house was of that rank that ismeanest and most despised of all the families in the land," "of alow and inconsiderable generation," the name, as we have seen, wasone of long standing in Bunyan's native county, and had once takenfar higher rank in it. And his parents, though poor, wereevidently worthy people, of good repute among their villageneighbours. Bunyan seems to be describing his own father and hiswandering life when he speaks of "an honest poor labouring man,who, like Adam unparadised, had all the world to get his bread in,and was very careful to maintain his family." He and his wife werealso careful with a higher care that their children should beproperly educated. "Notwithstanding the meanness andinconsiderableness of my parents," writes Bunyan, "it pleased Godto put it into their hearts to put me to school, to learn both toread and write." If we accept the evidence of the "ScripturalPoems," published for the first time twelve years after his death,the genuineness of which, though questioned by Dr. Brown, thereseems no sufficient reason to doubt, the little education he hadwas "gained in a grammar school." This would have been thatfounded by Sir William Harpur in Queen Mary's reign in theneighbouring town of Bedford. Thither we may picture the littlelad trudging day by day along the mile and a half of footpath androad from his father's cottage by the brookside, often, no doubt,wet and miry enough, not, as he says, to "go to school to Aristotleor Plato," but to be taught "according to the rate of other poormen's children." The Bedford school-master about this time,William Barnes by name, was a negligent sot, charged with "night-walking" and haunting "taverns and alehouses," and other evilpractices, as well as with treating the poor boys "when present"with a cruelty which must have made them wish that his absences,long as they were, had been more protracted. Whether this man washis master or no, it was little that Bunyan learnt at school, andthat little he confesses with shame he soon lost "almost utterly."He was before long called home to help his father at the Harrowdenforge, where he says he was "brought up in a very mean conditionamong a company of poor countrymen." Here, with but little toelevate or refine his character, the boy contracted many badhabits, and grew up what Coleridge somewhat too strongly calls "abitter blackguard." According to his own remorseful confession, hewas "filled with all unrighteousness," having "from a child" in his"tender years," "but few equals both for cursing, swearing, lyingand blaspheming the holy name of God." Sins of this kind hedeclares became "a second nature to him;" he "delighted in alltransgression against the law of God," and as he advanced in histeens he became a "notorious sinbreeder," the "very ringleader," hesays, of the village lads "in all manner of vice and ungodliness."But the unsparing condemnation passed by Bunyan, after hisconversion, on his former self, must not mislead us into supposinghim ever, either as boy or man, to have lived a vicious life. "Thewickedness of the tinker," writes Southey, "has been greatlyoverrated, and it is taking the language of self-accusation tooliterally to pronounce of John Bunyan that he was at any timedepraved." The justice of this verdict of acquittal is fullyaccepted by Coleridge. "Bunyan," he says, "was never in ourreceived sense of the word 'wicked.' He was chaste, sober, andhonest." He hints at youthful escapades, such, perhaps, asorchard-robbing, or when a little older, poaching, and the like,which might have brought him under "the stroke of the laws," andput him to "open shame before the face of the world." But heconfesses to no crime or profligate habit. We have no reason tosuppose that he was ever drunk, and we have his own most solemndeclaration that he was never guilty of an act of unchastity. "Inour days," to quote Mr. Froude, "a rough tinker who could say asmuch for himself after he had grown to manhood, would be regardedas a model of self-restraint. If in Bedford and the neighbourhoodthere was no young man more vicious than Bunyan, the moral standardof an English town in the seventeenth century must have been higherthan believers in progress will be pleased to allow." How then, itmay be asked, are we to explain the passionate language in which heexpresses his self-abhorrence, which would hardly seem exaggeratedin the mouth of the most profligate and licentious? We areconfident that Bunyan meant what he said. So intensely honest anature could not allow his words to go beyond his convictions.When he speaks of "letting loose the reins to his lusts," andsinning "with the greatest delight and ease," we know that howeverexaggerated they may appear to us, his expressions did not seem tohim overstrained. Dr. Johnson marvelled that St. Paul could callhimself "the chief of sinners," and expressed a doubt whether hedid so honestly. But a highly-strung spiritual nature like that ofthe apostle, when suddenly called into exercise after a period ofcarelessness, takes a very different estimate of sin from that ofthe world, even the decent moral world, in general. It realizesits own offences, venial as they appear to others, as sins againstinfinite love - a love unto death - and in the light of thesacrifice on Calvary, recognizes the heinousness of its guilt, andwhile it doubts not, marvels that it can be pardoned. Thesinfulness of sin - more especially their own sin - is theintensest of all possible realities to them. No language is toostrong to describe it. We may not unreasonably ask whether thisestimate, however exaggerated it may appear to those who arestrangers to these spiritual experiences, is altogether a mistakenone?

The spiritual instinct was very early awakened in Bunyan. Whilestill a child "but nine or ten years old," he tells us he wasracked with convictions of sin, and haunted with religious fears.He was scared with "fearful dreams," and "dreadful visions," andhaunted in his sleep with "apprehensions of devils and wickedspirits" coming to carry him away, which made his bed a place ofterrors. The thought of the Day of Judgment and of the torments ofthe lost, often came as a dark cloud over his mind in the midst ofhis boyish sports, and made him tremble. But though these feveredvisions embittered his enjoyment while they lasted, they were buttransient, and after a while they entirely ceased "as if they hadnever been," and he gave himself up without restraint to theyouthful pleasures in which his ardent nature made him ever theringleader. The "thoughts of religion" became very grievous tohim. He could not endure even to see others read pious books; "itwould be as a prison to me." The awful realities of eternity whichhad once been so crushing to his spirit were "both out of sight andmind." He said to God, "depart from me." According to the latermorbid estimate which stigmatized as sinful what were little morethan the wild acts of a roystering dare-devil young fellow, full ofanimal spirits and with an unusually active imagination, he "couldsin with the greatest delight and ease, and take pleasure in thevileness of his companions." But that the sense of religion wasnot wholly dead in him even then, and that while discarding itsrestraints he had an inward reverence for it, is shown by thehorror he experienced if those who had a reputation for godlinessdishonoured their profession. "Once," he says, "when I was at theheight of my vanity, hearing one to swear who was reckoned for areligious man, it had so great a stroke upon my spirit that it mademy heart to ache."

This undercurrent of religious feeling was deepened by providentialescapes from accidents which threatened his life - "judgments mixedwith mercy" he terms them, - which made him feel that he was notutterly forsaken of God. Twice he narrowly escaped drowning; oncein "Bedford river" - the Ouse; once in "a creek of the sea," histinkering rounds having, perhaps, carried him as far northward asthe tidal inlets of the Wash in the neighbourhood of Spalding orLynn, or to the estuaries of the Stour and Orwell to the east. Atanother time, in his wild contempt of danger, he tore out, whilehis companions looked on with admiration, what he mistakenlysupposed to be an adder's sting.

These providential deliverances bring us to that incident in hisbrief career as a soldier which his anonymous biographer tells us"made so deep an impression upon him that he would never mentionit, which he often did, without thanksgiving to God." But for thisoccurrence, indeed, we should have probably never known that he hadever served in the army at all. The story is best told in his ownprovokingly brief words - "When I was a soldier I with others weredrawn out to go to such a place to besiege it. But when I was justready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room; to whichwhen I consented, he took my place, and coming to the siege, as hestood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket bullet anddied." Here, as is so often the case in Bunyan's autobiography, wehave reason to lament the complete absence of details. This ischaracteristic of the man. The religious import of the occurrenceshe records constituted their only value in his eyes; their temporalsetting, which imparts their chief interest to us, was of noaccount to him. He gives us not the slightest clue to the name ofthe besieged place, or even to the side on which he was engaged.The date of the event is left equally vague. The last pointhowever we are able to determine with something like accuracy.November, 1644, was the earliest period at which Bunyan could haveentered the army, for it was not till then that he reached theregulation age of sixteen. Domestic circumstances had thenrecently occurred which may have tended to estrange him from hishome, and turn his thoughts to a military life. In the previousJune his mother had died, her death being followed within a monthby that of his sister Margaret. Before another month was out, hisfather, as we have already said, had married again, and whether thenew wife had proved the proverbial INJUSTA NOVERCA or not, his homemust have been sufficiently altered by the double, if we may notsay triple, calamity, to account for his leaving the dull monotonyof his native village for the more stirring career of a soldier.Which of the two causes then distracting the nation claimed hisadherence, Royalist or Parliamentarian, can never be determined.As Mr. Froude writes, "He does not tell us himself. His friends inafter life did not care to ask him or he to inform them, or elsethey thought the matter of too small importance to be worthmentioning with exactness." The only evidence is internal, and thedeductions from it vary with the estimate of the counter-balancingprobabilities taken by Bunyan's various biographers. LordMacaulay, whose conclusion is ably, and, we think, convincinglysupported by Dr. Brown, decides in favour of the side of theParliament. Mr. Froude, on the other hand, together with thepainstaking Mr. Offor, holds that "probability is on the side ofhis having been with the Royalists." Bedfordshire, however, wasone of the "Associated Counties" from which the Parliamentary armydrew its main strength, and it was shut in by a strong line ofdefence from any combination with the Royalist army. In 1643 thecounty had received an order requiring it to furnish "able andarmed men" to the garrison at Newport Pagnel, which was then thebase of operations against the King in that part of England. Allprobability therefore points to John Bunyan, the lusty young tinkerof Elstow, the leader in all manly sports and adventurousenterprises among his mates, and probably caring very little onwhat side he fought, having been drafted to Newport to serve underSir Samuel Luke, of Cople, and other Parliamentary commanders. Theplace of the siege he refers to is equally undeterminable. Atradition current within a few years of Bunyan's death, which LordMacaulay rather rashly invests with the certainty of fact, namesLeicester. The only direct evidence for this is the statement ofan anonymous biographer, who professes to have been a personalfriend of Bunyan's, that he was present at the siege of Leicester,in 1645, as a soldier in the Parliamentary army. This statement,however, is in direct defiance of Bunyan's own words. For the onething certain in the matter is that wherever the siege may havebeen, Bunyan was not at it. He tells us plainly that he was "drawnto go," and that when he was just starting, he gave up his place toa comrade who went in his room, and was shot through the head.Bunyan's presence at the siege of Leicester, which has been sooften reported that it has almost been regarded as an historicaltruth, must therefore take its place among the baseless creationsof a fertile fancy.

Bunyan's military career, wherever passed and under whateverstandard, was very short. The civil war was drawing near the endof its first stage when he enlisted. He had only been a soldier afew months when the battle of Naseby, fatal to the royal cause, wasfought, June 14, 1645. Bristol was surrendered by Prince Rupert,Sept. 10th. Three days later Montrose was totally defeated atPhiliphaugh; and after a vain attempt to relieve Chester, Charlesshut himself up in Oxford. The royal garrisons yielded in quicksuccession; in 1646 the armies on both sides were disbanded, andthe first act in the great national tragedy having come to a close,Bunyan returned to Elstow, and resumed his tinker's work at thepaternal forge. His father, old Thomas Bunyan, it may here bementioned, lived all through his famous son's twelve years'imprisonment, witnessed his growing celebrity as a preacher and awriter, and died in the early part of 1676, just when John Bunyanwas passing through his last brief period of durance, which was togive birth to the work which has made him immortal.

CHAPTER II.

It cannot have been more than two or three years after Bunyan'sreturn home from his short experience of a soldier's life, that hetook the step which, more than any other, influences a man's futurecareer for good or for evil. The young tinker married. With hischaracteristic disregard of all facts or dates but such as concernhis spiritual history, Bunyan tells us nothing about the orphangirl he made his wife. Where he found her, who her parents were,where they were married, even her christian name, were all deemedso many irrelevant details. Indeed the fact of his marriage wouldprobably have been passed over altogether but for the importantbearing it hid on his inner life. His "mercy," as he calls it,"was to light upon a wife whose father was counted godly," and who,though she brought him no marriage portion, so that they "cametogether as poor as poor might be," as "poor as howlets," to adopthis own simile, "without so much household stuff as a dish or aspoon betwixt" them, yet brought with her to the Elstow cottage tworeligious books, which had belonged to her father, and which he"had left her when he died." These books were "The Plain Man'sPathway to Heaven," the work of Arthur Dent, the puritan incumbentof Shoebury, in Essex - "wearisomely heavy and theologicallynarrow," writes Dr. Brown - and "The Practise of Piety," by Dr.Lewis Bayley, Bishop of Bangor, and previously chaplain to PrinceHenry, which enjoyed a wide reputation with puritans as well aswith churchmen. Together with these books, the young wife broughtthe still more powerful influence of a religious training, and thememory of a holy example, often telling her young graceless husband"what a godly man her father was, and how he would reprove andcorrect vice both in his house and amongst his neighbours, and whata strict and holy life he lived in his days both in word and deed."Much as Bunyan tells us he had lost of the "little he had learnt"at school, he had not lost it "utterly." He was still able to readintelligently. His wife's gentle influence prevailed on him tobegin "sometimes to read" her father's legacy "with her." Thismust have been entirely new reading for Bunyan, and certainly atfirst not much to his taste. What his favourite reading had beenup to this time, his own nervous words tell us, "Give me a ballad,a news-book, George on Horseback, or Bevis of Southampton; give mesome book that teaches curious arts, that tells of old fables."But as he and his young wife read these books together at theirfireside, a higher taste was gradually awakened in Bunyan's mind;"some things" in them he "found somewhat pleasing" to him, and they"begot" within him "some desires to religion," producing a degreeof outward reformation. The spiritual instinct was aroused. Hewould be a godly man like his wife's father. He began to "go tochurch twice a day, and that too with the foremost." Nor was it amere formal attendance, for when there he tells us he took his partwith all outward devotion in the service, "both singing and sayingas others did; yet," as he penitently confesses, "retaining hiswicked life," the wickedness of which, however, did not amount tomore than a liking for the sports and games of the lads of thevillage, bell-ringing, dancing, and the like. The prohibition ofall liturgical forms issued in 1645, the observance of which variedwith the strictness or laxity of the local authorities, would notseem to have been put in force very rigidly at Elstow. The vicar,Christopher Hall, was an Episcopalian, who, like Bishop Sanderson,retained his benefice unchallenged all through the Protectorate,and held it some years after the Restoration and the passing of theAct of Uniformity. He seems, like Sanderson, to have kept himselfwithin the letter of the law by making trifling variations in thePrayer Book formularies, consistent with a general conformity tothe old order of the Church, "without persisting to his owndestruction in the usage of the entire liturgy." The decentdignity of the ceremonial of his parish church had a powerfuleffect on Bunyan's freshly awakened religious susceptibility - a"spirit of superstition" he called it afterwards - and helped toits fuller development. "I adored," he says, "with great devotion,even all things, both the High Place" - altars then had not beenentirely broken down and levelled in Bedfordshire - "Priest, Clerk,Vestment, Service, and what else belonging to the church, countingall things holy that were therein contained, and especially thePriest and Clerk most happy, and without doubt greatly blessedbecause they were the servants of God and were principal in theHoly Temple, to do His work therein, . . . their name, their garb,and work, did so intoxicate and bewitch me." If it is questionablewhether the Act forbidding the use of the Book of Common Prayer wasstrictly observed at Elstow, it is certain that the prohibition ofSunday sports was not. Bunyan's narrative shows that the aspect ofa village green in Bedfordshire during the Protectorate did notdiffer much from what Baxter tells us it had been in Shropshirebefore the civil troubles began, where, "after the Common Prayerhad been read briefly, the rest of the day even till dark nightalmost, except eating time, was spent in dancing under a maypoleand a great tree, when all the town did meet together." TheseSunday sports proved the battle-ground of Bunyan's spiritualexperience, the scene of the fierce inward struggles which he hasdescribed so vividly, through which he ultimately reached the firmground of solid peace and hope. As a high-spirited healthyathletic young fellow, all kinds of manly sports were Bunyan'sdelight. On week days his tinker's business, which he evidentlypursued industriously, left him small leisure for such amusements.Sunday therefore was the day on which he "did especially solacehimself" with them. He had yet to learn the identification ofdiversions with "all manner of vice." The teaching came in thisway. One Sunday, Vicar Hall preached a sermon on the sin ofSabbath-breaking, and like many hearers before and since, heimagined that it was aimed expressly at him. Sermon ended, he wenthome "with a great burden upon his spirit," "sermon-stricken" and"sermon sick" as he expresses it elsewhere. But his Sunday'sdinner speedily drove away his self-condemning thoughts. He "shookthe sermon out of his mind," and went out to his sports with theElstow lads on the village green, with as "great delight" as ever.But in the midst of his game of tip-cat or "sly," just as he hadstruck the "cat" from its hole, and was going to give it a secondblow - the minuteness of the detail shows the unforgetable realityof the crisis - he seemed to hear a voice from heaven asking himwhether "he would leave his sins and go to heaven, or keep his sinsand go to hell." He thought also that he saw Jesus Christ lookingdown on him with threatening countenance. But like his own Hopefulhe "shut his eyes against the light," and silenced the condemningvoice with the feeling that repentance was hopeless. "It was toolate for him to look after heaven; he was past pardon." If hiscondemnation was already sealed and he was eternally lost, it wouldnot matter whether he was condemned for many sins or for few.Heaven was gone already. The only happiness he could look for waswhat he could get out of his sins - his morbidly sensitiveconscience perversely identifying sports with sin - so he returneddesperately to his games, resolved, he says, to "take my fill ofsin, still studying what sin was yet to be committed that I mighttaste the sweetness of it."

This desperate recklessness lasted with him "about a month ormore," till "one day as he was standing at a neighbour's shop-window, cursing and swearing and playing the madman after hiswonted manner, the woman of the house, though a very loose andungodly wretch," rebuked him so severely as "the ungodliest fellowfor swearing that ever she heard, able to spoil all the youth in awhole town," that, self-convicted, he hung down his head in silentshame, wishing himself a little child again that he might unlearnthe wicked habit of which he thought it impossible to breakhimself. Hopeless as the effort seemed to him, it provedeffectual. He did "leave off his swearing" to his own "greatwonder," and found that he "could speak better and with morepleasantness" than when he "put an oath before and another behind,to give his words authority." Thus was one step in his reformationtaken, and never retraced; but, he adds sorrowfully, "all thiswhile I knew not Jesus Christ, neither did I leave my sports andplays." We might be inclined to ask, why should he leave them?But indifferent and innocent in themselves, an overstrainedspirituality had taught him to regard them as sinful. To indulgein them wounded his morbidly sensitive conscience, and so they weresin to him.

The next step onward in this religious progress was the study ofthe Bible, to which he was led by the conversation of a poor godlyneighbour. Naturally he first betook himself to the historicalbooks, which, he tells us, he read "with great pleasure;" but, likeBaxter who, beginning his Bible reading in the same course, writes,"I neither understood nor relished much the doctrinal part," hefrankly confesses, "Paul's Epistles and such like Scriptures Icould not away with." His Bible reading helped forward the outwardreformation he had begun. He set the keeping the Ten Commandmentsbefore him as his "way to Heaven"; much comforted "sometimes" when,as he thought, "he kept them pretty well," but humbled inconscience when "now and then he broke one." "But then," he says,"I should repent and say I was sorry for it, and promise God to dobetter next time, and then get help again; for then I thought Ipleased God as well as any man in England." His progress was slow,for each step involved a battle, but it was steadily onwards. Hehad a very hard struggle in relinquishing his favourite amusements.But though he had much yet to learn, his feet were set on theupward way, and he had no mind to go back, great as the temptationoften was. He had once delighted in bell-ringing, but "hisconscience beginning to be tender" - morbid we should rather say -"he thought such practise to be vain, and therefore forced himselfto leave it." But "hankering after it still," he continued to gowhile his old companions rang, and look on at what he "durst not"join in, until the fear that if he thus winked at what hisconscience condemned, a bell, or even the tower itself, might falland kill him, put a stop even to that compromise. Dancing, whichfrom his boyhood he had practised on the village green, or in theold Moot Hall, was still harder to give up. "It was a full yearbefore I could quite leave that." But this too was at lastrenounced, and finally. The power of Bunyan's indomitable will wasbracing itself for severe trials yet to come.

Meanwhile Bunyan's neighbours regarded with amazement the changedlife of the profane young tinker. "And truly," he honestlyconfesses, "so they well might for this my conversion was as greatas for Tom of Bedlam to become a sober man." Bunyan's reformationwas soon the town's talk; he had "become godly," "become a righthonest man." These commendations flattered is vanity, and he laidhimself out for them. He was then but a "poor painted hypocrite,"he says, "proud of his godliness, and doing all he did either to beseen of, or well spoken of by man." This state of self-satisfaction, he tells us, lasted "for about a twelvemonth ormore." During this deceitful calm he says, "I had great peace ofconscience, and should think with myself, 'God cannot choose butnow be pleased with me,' yea, to relate it in mine own way, Ithought no man in England could please God better than I." But nooutward reformation can bring lasting inward peace. When a man ishonest with himself, the more earnestly he struggles after completeobedience, the more faulty does his obedience appear. The goodopinion of others will not silence his own inward condemnation. Heneeds a higher righteousness than his own; a firmer standing-groundthan the shifting quicksand of his own good deeds. "All thiswhile," he writes, "poor wretch as I was, I was ignorant of JesusChrist, and going about to establish my own righteousness, and hadperished therein had not God in mercy showed me more of my state bynature."

This revolution was nearer than he imagined. Bunyan's self-satisfaction was rudely shaken, and his need of something deeper inthe way of religion than he had yet experienced was shown him bythe conversation of three or four poor women whom, one day, whenpursuing his tinker's calling at Bedford, he came upon "sitting ata door in the sun, and talking of the things of God." These womenwere members of the congregation of "the holy Mr. John Gifford,"who, at that time of ecclesiastical confusion, subsequently becamerector of St. John's Church, in Bedford, and master of the hospitalattached to it. Gifford's career had been a strange one. We hearof him first as a young major in the king's army at the outset ofthe Civil War, notorious for his loose and debauched life, taken byFairfax at Maidstone in 1648, and condemned to the gallows. By hissister's help he eluded his keepers' vigilance, escaped fromprison, and ultimately found his way to Bedford, where for a timehe practised as a physician, though without any change of his loosehabits. The loss of a large sum of money at gaming awoke a disgustat his dissolute life. A few sentences of a pious book deepenedthe impression. He became a converted man, and joined himself to ahandful of earnest Christians in Bedford, who becoming, in thelanguage of the day, "a church," he was appointed its firstminister. Gifford exercised a deep and vital though narrowinfluence, leaving behind him at his death, in 1655, the characterof a "wise, tolerant, and truly Christian man." The conversationof the poor women who were destined to exercise so momentous aninfluence on Bunyan's spiritual life, evidenced how thoroughly theyhad drunk in their pastor's teaching. Bunyan himself was at thistime a "brisk talker in the matters of religion," such as he drewfrom the life in his own Talkative. But the words of these poorwomen were entirely beyond him. They opened a new and blessed landto which he was a complete stranger. "They spoke of their ownwretchedness of heart, of their unbelief, of their miserable stateby nature, of the new birth, and the work of God in their souls,and how the Lord refreshed them, and supported them against thetemptations of the Devil by His words and promises." But whatseems to have struck Bunyan the most forcibly was the happinesswhich their religion shed in the hearts of these poor women.Religion up to this time had been to him a system of rules andrestrictions. Heaven was to be won by doing certain things and notdoing certain other things. Of religion as a Divine life kindledin the soul, and flooding it with a joy which creates a heaven onearth, he had no conception. Joy in believing was a new thing tohim. "They spake as if joy did make them speak; they spake withsuch pleasantness of Scripture language, and with such appearanceof grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they hadfound a new world," a veritable "El Dorado," stored with the trueriches. Bunyan, as he says, after he had listened awhile andwondered at their words, left them and went about his work again.But their words went with him. He could not get rid of them. Hesaw that though he thought himself a godly man, and his neighboursthought so too, he wanted the true tokens of godliness. He wasconvinced that godliness was the only true happiness, and he couldnot rest till he had attained it. So he made it his business to begoing again and again into the company of these good women. Hecould not stay away, and the more he talked with them the moreuneasy he became - "the more I questioned my own condition." Thesalvation of his soul became all in all to him. His mind "layfixed on eternity like a horse-leech at the vein." The Biblebecame precious to him. He read it with new eyes, "as I never didbefore." "I was indeed then never out of the Bible, either byreading or meditation." The Epistles of St. Paul, which before he"could not away with," were now "sweet and pleasant" to him. Hewas still "crying out to God that he might know the truth and theway to Heaven and glory." Having no one to guide him in his studyof the most difficult of all books, it is no wonder that hemisinterpreted and misapplied its words in a manner which went farto unsettle his brain. He read that without faith he could not besaved, and though he did not clearly know what faith was, it becamea question of supreme anxiety to him to determine whether he had itor not. If not, he was a castaway indeed, doomed to perish forever. So he determined to put it to the test. The Bible told himthat faith, "even as a grain of mustard seed," would enable itspossessor to work miracles. So, as Mr. Froude says, "notunderstanding Oriental metaphors," he thought he had here a simpletest which would at once solve the question. One day as he waswalking along the miry road between Elstow and Bedford, which hehad so often paced as a schoolboy, "the temptation came hot uponhim" to put the matter to the proof, by saying to the puddles thatwere in the horse-pads "be dry," and to the dry places, "be yepuddles." He was just about to utter the words when a suddenthought stopped him. Would it not be better just to go under thehedge and pray that God would enable him? This pause saved himfrom a rash venture, which might have landed him in despair. Forhe concluded that if he tried after praying and nothing came of it,it would prove that he had no faith, but was a castaway. "Nay,thought I, if it be so, I will never try yet, but will stay alittle longer." "Then," he continues, "I was so tossed betwixt theDevil and my own ignorance, and so perplexed, especially atsometimes, that I could not tell what to do." At another time hismind, as the minds of thousands have been and will be to the end,was greatly harassed by the insoluble problems of predestinationand election. The question was not now whether he had faith, but"whether he was one of the elect or not, and if not, what then?""He might as well leave off and strive no further." And then thestrange fancy occurred to him, that the good people at Bedfordwhose acquaintance he had recently made, were all that God meant tosave in that part of the country, and that the day of grace waspast and gone for him; that he had overstood the time of mercy."Oh that he had turned sooner!" was then his cry. "Oh that he hadturned seven years before! What a fool he had been to trifle awayhis time till his soul and heaven were lost!" The text, "compelthem to come in, and yet there is room," came to his rescue when hewas so harassed and faint that he was "scarce able to take one stepmore." He found them "sweet words," for they showed him that therewas "place enough in heaven for him," and he verily believed thatwhen Christ spoke them He was thinking of him, and had themrecorded to help him to overcome the vile fear that there was noplace left for him in His bosom. But soon another fear succeededthe former. Was he truly called of Christ? "He called to themwhen He would, and they came to Him." But they could not comeunless He called them. Had He called him? Would He call him? IfHe did how gladly would he run after Him. But oh, he feared thatHe had no liking to him; that He would not call him. Trueconversion was what he longed for. "Could it have been gotten forgold," he said, "what could I have given for it! Had I a wholeworld, it had all gone ten thousand times over for this, that mysoul might have been in a converted state." All those whom hethought to be truly converted were now lovely in his eyes. "Theyshone, they walked like people that carried the broad seal ofheaven about them. Oh that he were like them, and shared in theirgoodly heritage!"

About this time Bunyan was greatly troubled, though at the sametime encouraged in his endeavours after the blessedness he longedfor so earnestly but could not yet attain to, by "a dream orvision" which presented itself to him, whether in his waking orsleeping hours he does not tell us. He fancied he saw his fourBedford friends refreshing themselves on the sunny side of a highmountain while he was shivering with dark and cold on the otherside, parted from them by a high wall with only one small gap init, and that not found but after long searching, and so strait andnarrow withal that it needed long and desperate efforts to forcehis way through. At last he succeeded. "Then," he says, "I wasexceeding glad, and went and sat down in the midst of them, and sowas comforted with the light and heat of their sun."

But this sunshine shone but in illusion, and soon gave place to theold sad questioning, which filled his soul with darkness. Was healready called, or should he be called some day? He would giveworlds to know. Who could assure him? At last some words of theprophet Joel (chap. iii, 21) encouraged him to hope that if notconverted already, the time might come when he should be convertedto Christ. Despair began to give way to hopefulness.

At this crisis Bunyan took the step which he would have been wiseif he had taken long before. He sought the sympathy and counsel ofothers. He began to speak his mind to the poor people in Bedfordwhose words of religious experiences had first revealed to him histrue condition. By them he was introduced to their pastor, "thegodly Mr. Gifford," who invited him to his house and gave himspiritual counsel. He began to attend the meetings of hisdisciples.

The teaching he received here was but ill-suited for one ofBunyan's morbid sensitiveness. For it was based upon a constantintrospection and a scrupulous weighing of each word and action,with a torturing suspicion of its motive, which made a man's ever-varying spiritual feelings the standard of his state before God,instead of leading him off from self to the Saviour. It is not,therefore, at all surprising that a considerable period intervenedbefore, in the language of his school, "he found peace." Thisperiod, which seems to have embraced two or three years, was markedby that tremendous inward struggle which he has described, "as witha pen of fire," in that marvellous piece of religiousautobiography, without a counterpart except in "The Confessions ofSt. Augustine," his "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners."Bunyan's first experiences after his introduction to Mr. Giffordand the inner circle of his disciples were most discouraging. Whathe heard of God's dealings with their souls showed him something of"the vanity and inward wretchedness of his wicked heart," and atthe same time roused all its hostility to God's will. "It did workat that rate for wickedness as it never did before." "TheCanaanites WOULD dwell in the land." "His heart hankered afterevery foolish vanity, and hung back both to and in every duty, as aclog on the leg of a bird to hinder her from flying." He thoughtthat he was growing "worse and worse," and was "further fromconversion than ever before." Though he longed to let Christ intohis heart, "his unbelief would, as it were, set its shoulder to thedoor to keep Him out."

Yet all the while he was tormented with the most perversescrupulosity of conscience. "As to the act of sinning, I never wasmore tender than now; I durst not take a pin or a stick, though butso big as a straw, for my conscience now was sore, and would smartat every twist. I could not now tell how to speak my words, forfear I should misplace them. Oh! how gingerly did I then go in allI did or said: I found myself in a miry bog, that shook if I didbut stir, and was as those left both of God, and Christ, and theSpirit, and all good things." All the misdoings of his earlieryears rose up against him. There they were, and he could not ridhimself of them. He thought that no one could be so bad as he was;"not even the Devil could be his equal: he was more loathsome inhis own eyes than a toad." What then must God think of him?Despair seized fast hold of him. He thought he was "forsaken ofGod and given up to the Devil, and to a reprobate mind." Nor wasthis a transient fit of despondency. "Thus," he writes, "Icontinued a long while, even for some years together."

This is not the place minutely to pursue Bunyan's religious historythrough the sudden alternations of hopes and fears, the fiercetemptations, the torturing illusions, the strange perversions ofisolated scraps of Bible language - texts torn from their context -the harassing doubts as to the truth of Christianity, the depths ofdespair and the elevations of joy, which he has portrayed with hisown inimitable graphic power. It is a picture of fearfulfascination that he draws. "A great storm" at one time comes downupon him, "piece by piece," which "handled him twenty times worsethan all he had met with before," while "floods of blasphemies werepoured upon his spirit," and would "bolt out of his heart." Hefelt himself driven to commit the unpardonable sin and blasphemethe Holy Ghost, "whether he would or no." "No sin would serve butthat." He was ready to "clap his hand under his chin," to keep hismouth shut, or to leap head-foremost "into some muckhill-hole," toprevent his uttering the fatal words. At last he persuaded himselfthat he had committed the sin, and a good but not overwise man, "anancient Christian," whom he consulted on his sad case, told him hethought so too, "which was but cold comfort." He thought himselfpossessed by the devil, and compared himself to a child "carriedoff under her apron by a gipsy." "Kick sometimes I did, and alsoshriek and cry, but yet I was as bound in the wings of thetemptation, and the wind would carry me away." He wished himself"a dog or a toad," for they "had no soul to be lost as his was liketo be;" and again a hopeless callousness seemed to settle upon him."If I would have given a thousand pounds for a tear I could notshed one; no, nor sometimes scarce desire to shed one." And yet hewas all the while bewailing this hardness of heart, in which hethought himself singular. "This much sunk me. I thought mycondition was alone; but how to get out of, or get rid of, thesethings I could not." Again the very ground of his faith wasshaken. "Was the Bible true, or was it not rather a fable andcunning story?" All thought "their own religion true. Might notthe Turks have as good Scriptures to prove their Mahomet Saviour asChristians had for Christ? What if all we believed in should bebut 'a think-so' too?" So powerful and so real were his illusionsthat he had hard work to keep himself from praying to things abouthim, to "a bush, a bull, a besom, or the like," or even to Satanhimself. He heard voices behind him crying out that Satan desiredto have him, and that "so loud and plain that he would turn hishead to see who was calling him;" when on his knees in prayer hefancied he felt the foul fiend pull his clothes from behind,bidding him "break off, make haste; you have prayed enough."

This "horror of great darkness" was not always upon him. Bunyanhad his intervals of "sunshine-weather" when Giant Despair's fitscame on him, and the giant "lost the use of his hand." Texts ofScripture would give him a "sweet glance," and flood his soul withcomfort. But these intervals of happiness were but short-lived.They were but "hints, touches, and short visits," sweet whenpresent, but "like Peter's sheet, suddenly caught up again intoheaven." But, though transient, they helped the burdened Pilgrimonward. So vivid was the impression sometimes made, that yearsafter he could specify the place where these beams of sunlight fellon him - "sitting in a neighbour's house," - "travelling into thecountry," - as he was "going home from sermon." And the joy wasreal while it lasted. The words of the preacher's text, "Behold,thou art fair, my love," kindling his spirit, he felt his "heartfilled with comfort and hope." "Now I could believe that my sinswould be forgiven." He was almost beside himself with ecstasy. "Iwas now so taken with the love and mercy of God that I thought Icould have spoken of it even to the very crows that sat upon theploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understoodme." "Surely," he cried with gladness, "I will not forget thisforty years hence." "But, alas! within less than forty days Ibegan to question all again." It was the Valley of the Shadow ofDeath which Bunyan, like his own Pilgrim, was travelling through.But, as in his allegory, "by and by the day broke," and "the Lorddid more fully and graciously discover Himself unto him." "Oneday," he writes, "as I was musing on the wickedness and blasphemyof my heart, that scripture came into my mind, 'He hath made peaceby the Blood of His Cross.' By which I was made to see, both againand again and again that day, that God and my soul were friends bythis blood: Yea, I saw the justice of God and my sinful soul couldembrace and kiss each other. This was a good day to me. I hope Ishall not forget it." At another time the "glory and joy" of apassage in the Hebrews (ii. 14-15) were "so weighty" that "I wasonce or twice ready to swoon as I sat, not with grief and trouble,but with solid joy and peace." "But, oh! now how was my soul ledon from truth to truth by God; now had I evidence of my salvationfrom heaven, with many golden seals thereon all banging in mysight, and I would long that the last day were come, or that I werefourscore years old, that I might die quickly that my soul might beat rest."

At this time he fell in with an old tattered copy of Luther's"Commentary on the Galatians," "so old that it was ready to fallpiece from piece if I did but turn it over." As he read, to hisamazement and thankfulness, he found his own spiritual experiencedescribed. "It was as if his book had been written out of myheart." It greatly comforted him to find that his condition wasnot, as he had thought, solitary, but that others had known thesame inward struggles. "Of all the books that ever he had seen,"he deemed it "most fit for a wounded conscience." This book wasalso the means of awakening an intense love for the Saviour. "NowI found, as I thought, that I loved Christ dearly. Oh, methoughtmy soul cleaved unto Him, my affections cleaved unto Him; I feltlove to Him as hot as fire."

And very quickly, as he tells us, his "love was tried to somepurpose." He became the victim of an extraordinary temptation - "afreak of fancy," Mr. Froude terms it - "fancy resenting theminuteness with which he watched his own emotions." He had "foundChrist" and felt Him "most precious to his soul." He was nowtempted to give Him up, "to sell and part with this most blessedChrist, to exchange Him for the things of this life; for anything."Nor was this a mere passing, intermittent delusion. "It lay uponme for the space of a year, and did follow me so continually that Iwas not rid of it one day in a month, no, not sometimes one hour inmany days together, except when I was asleep." Wherever he was,whatever he was doing day and night, in bed, at table, at work, avoice kept sounding in his ears, bidding him "sell Christ" for thisor that. He could neither "eat his food, stoop for a pin, chop astick, or cast his eyes on anything" but the hateful words wereheard, "not once only, but a hundred times over, as fast as a mancould speak, 'sell Him, sell Him, sell Him,' and, like his ownChristian in the dark valley, he could not determine whether theywere suggestions of the Wicked One, or came from his own heart.The agony was so intense, while, for hours together, he struggledwith the temptation, that his whole body was convulsed by it. Itwas no metaphorical, but an actual, wrestling with a tangibleenemy. He "pushed and thrust with his hands and elbows," and keptstill answering, as fast as the destroyer said "sell Him," "No, Iwill not, I will not, I will not! not for thousands, thousands,thousands of worlds!" at least twenty times together. But thefatal moment at last came, and the weakened will yielded, againstitself. One morning as he lay in his bed, the voice came againwith redoubled force, and would not be silenced. He fought againstit as long as he could, "even until I was almost out of breath,"when "without any conscious action of his will" the suicidal wordsshaped themselves in his heart, "Let Him go if He will."

Now all was over. He had spoken the words and they could not berecalled. Satan had "won the battle," and "as a bird that is shotfrom the top of a tree, down fell he into great guilt and fearfuldespair." He left his bed, dressed, and went "moping into thefield," where for the next two hours he was "like a man bereft oflife, and as one past all recovery and bound to eternalpunishment." The most terrible examples in the Bible came troopingbefore him. He had sold his birthright like Esau. He a betrayedhis Master like Judas - "I was ashamed that I should be like suchan ugly man as Judas." There was no longer any place forrepentance. He was past all recovery; shut up unto the judgment tocome. He dared hardly pray. When he tried to do so, he was "aswith a tempest driven away from God," while something within said,"'Tis too late; I am lost; God hath let me fall." The texts whichonce had comforted him gave him no comfort now; or, if they did, itwas but for a brief space. "About ten or eleven o'clock one day,as I was walking under a hedge and bemoaning myself for this hardhap that such a thought should arise within me, suddenly thissentence bolted upon me, 'The blood of Christ cleanseth from allsin,'" and gave me "good encouragement." But in two or three hoursall was gone. The terrible words concerning Esau's selling hisbirthright took possession of his mind, and "held him down." This"stuck with him." Though he "sought it carefully with tears,"there was no restoration for him. His agony received a terribleaggravation from a highly coloured narrative of the terrible deathof Francis Spira, an Italian lawyer of the middle of the sixteenthcentury, who, having embraced the Protestant religion, was inducedby worldly motives to return to the Roman Catholic Church, and diedfull of remorse and despair, from which Bunyan afterwards drew theawful picture of "the man in the Iron Cage" at "the Interpreter'shouse." The reading of this book was to his "troubled spirit" as"salt when rubbed into a fresh wound," "as knives and daggers inhis soul." We cannot wonder that his health began to give wayunder so protracted a struggle. His naturally sturdy frame was"shaken by a continual trembling." He would "wind and twine andshrink under his burden," the weight of which so crushed him thathe "could neither stand, nor go, nor lie, either at rest or quiet."His digestion became disordered, and a pain, "as if his breastbonewould have split asunder," made him fear that as he had been guiltyof Judas' sin, so he was to perish by Judas' end, and "burstasunder in the midst." In the trembling of his limbs he saw Cain'smark set upon him; God had marked him out for his curse. No onewas ever so bad as he. No one had ever sinned so flagrantly. Whenhe compared his sins with those of David and Solomon and Manassehand others which had been pardoned, he found his sin so muchexceeded theirs that he could have no hope of pardon. Theirs, "itwas true, were great sins; sins of a bloody colour. But none ofthem were of the nature of his. He had sold his Saviour. His sinwas point blank against Christ." "Oh, methought this sin wasbigger than the sins of a country, of a kingdom, or of the wholeworld; not all of them together was able to equal mine; mineoutwent them every one."

It would be wearisome to follow Bunyan through all the mazes of hisself-torturing illusions. Fierce as the storm was, and long in itsduration - for it was more than two years before the storm became acalm - the waves, though he knew it not, in their fierce tossingswhich threatened to drive his soul like a broken vessel headlong onthe rocks of despair, were bearing him nearer and nearer to the"haven where he would be." His vivid imagination, as we have seen,surrounded him with audible voices. He had heard, as he thought,the tempter bidding him "Sell Christ;" now he thought he heard God"with a great voice, as it were, over his shoulder behind him,"saying, "Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee;" and though hefelt that the voice mocked him, for he could not return, there was"no place of repentance" for him, and fled from it, it stillpursued him, "holloaing after him, 'Return, return!'" And returnhe did, but not all at once, or without many a fresh struggle.With his usual graphic power he describes the zigzag path by whichhe made his way. His hot and cold fits alternated with fearfulsuddenness. "As Esau beat him down, Christ raised him up." "Hislife hung in doubt, not knowing which way he should tip." Moresensible evidence came. "One day," he tells us, "as I walked toand fro in a good man's shop" - we can hardly be wrong in placingit in Bedford - "bemoaning myself for this hard hap of mine, forthat I should commit so great a sin, greatly fearing that I shouldnot be pardoned, and ready to sink with fear, suddenly there was asif there had rushed in at the window the noise of wind upon me, butvery pleasant, and I heard a voice speaking, 'Did'st ever refuse tobe justified by the Blood of Christ?'" Whether the voice weresupernatural or not, he was not, "in twenty years' time," able todetermine. At the time he thought it was. It was "as if an angelhad come upon me." "It commanded a great calm upon me. Itpersuaded me there might be hope." But this persuasion soonvanished. "In three or four days I began to despair again." Hefound it harder than ever to pray. The devil urged that God wasweary of him; had been weary for years past; that he wanted to getrid of him and his "bawlings in his ears," and therefore He had lethim commit this particular sin that he might be cut off altogether.For such an one to pray was but to add sin to sin. There was nohope for him. Christ might indeed pity him and wish to help him;but He could not, for this sin was unpardonable. He had said "letHim go if He will," and He had taken him at his word. "Then," hesays, "I was always sinking whatever I did think or do." Yearsafterwards he remembered how, "in this time of hopelessness, havingwalked one day, to a neighbouring town, wearied out with hismisery, he sat down on a settle in the street to ponder over hisfearful state. As he looked up, everything he saw seemed bandedtogether for the destruction of so vile a sinner. The "sun grudgedhim its light, the very stones in the streets and the tiles on thehouse-roofs seemed to bend themselves against him." He burst forthwith a grievous sigh, "How can God comfort such a wretch as I?"Comfort was nearer than he imagined. "No sooner had I said it, butthis returned to me, as an echo doth answer a voice, 'This sin isnot unto death.'" This breathed fresh life into his soul. He was"as if he had been raised out of a grave." "It was a release to mefrom my former bonds, a shelter from my former storm." But thoughthe storm was allayed it was by no means over. He had to strugglehard to maintain his ground. "Oh, how did Satan now lay about himfor to bring me down again. But he could by no means do it, forthis sentence stood like a millpost at my back." But after twodays the old despairing thoughts returned, "nor could his faithretain the word." A few hours, however, saw the return of hishopes. As he was on his knees before going to bed, "seeking theLord with strong cries," a voice echoed his prayer, "I have lovedThee with an everlasting love." "Now I went to bed at quiet, andwhen I awaked the next morning it was fresh upon my soul and Ibelieved it."

These voices from heaven - whether real or not he could not tell,nor did he much care, for they were real to him - were continuallysounding in his ears to help him out of the fresh crises of hisspiritual disorder. At one time "O man, great is thy faith,""fastened on his heart as if one had clapped him on the back." Atanother, "He is able," spoke suddenly and loudly within his heart;at another, that "piece of a sentence," "My grace is sufficient,"darted in upon him "three times together," and he was "as though hehad seen the Lord Jesus look down through the tiles upon him," andwas sent mourning but rejoicing home. But it was still with himlike an April sky. At one time bright sunshine, at anotherlowering clouds. The terrible words about Esau "returned on him asbefore," and plunged him in darkness, and then again some goodwords, "as it seemed writ in great letters," brought back the lightof day. But the sunshine began to last longer than before, and theclouds were less heavy. The "visage" of the threatening texts waschanged; "they looked not on him so grimly as before;" "that aboutEsau's birthright began to wax weak and withdraw and vanish." "Nowremained only the hinder part of the tempest. The thunder wasgone; only a few drops fell on him now and then."

The long-expected deliverance was at hand. As he was walking inthe fields, still with some fears in his heart, the sentence fellupon his soul, "Thy righteousness is in heaven." He looked up and"saw with the eyes of his soul our Saviour at God's right hand.""There, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, orwhatever I was a-doing, God could not say of me, 'He wants myrighteousness,' for that was just before Him. Now did the chainsfall off from my legs. I was loosed from my affliction and irons.My temptations also fled away, so that from that time thosedreadful Scriptures left off to trouble me. Oh methought Christ,Christ, there was nothing but Christ that was before mine eyes. Icould look from myself to Him, and should reckon that all thosegraces of God that now were green upon me, were yet but like thosecrack-groats, and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry intheir purses, while their gold is in their trunks at home. Oh, Isaw my gold was in my trunk at home. In Christ my Lord andSaviour. Further the Lord did lead me into the mystery of unionwith the Son of God. His righteousness was mine, His merits mine,His victory also mine. Now I could see myself in heaven and earthat once; in heaven by my Christ, by my Head, by my Righteousnessand Life, though on earth by my body or person. These blessedconsiderations were made to spangle in mine eyes. Christ was myall; all my Wisdom, all my Righteousness, all my Sanctification,and all my Redemption."

CHAPTER III.

The Pilgrim, having now floundered through the Slough of Despond,passed through the Wicket Gate, climbed the Hill Difficulty, andgot safe by the Lions, entered the Palace Beautiful, and was "hadin to the family." In plain words, Bunyan united himself to thelittle Christian brotherhood at Bedford, of which the former loose-living royalist major, Mr. Gifford, was the pastor, and wasformally admitted into their society. In Gifford we recognize theprototype of the Evangelist of "The Pilgrim's Progress," while thePrudence, Piety, and Charity of Bunyan's immortal narrative hadtheir human representatives in devout female members of thecongregation, known in their little Bedford world as SisterBosworth, Sister Munnes, and Sister Fenne, three of the poor womenwhose pleasant words on the things of God, as they sat at a doorwayin the sun, "as if joy did make them speak," had first openedBunyan's eyes to his spiritual ignorance. He was received into thechurch by baptism, which, according to his earliest biographer,Charles Doe "the Struggler," was performed publicly by Mr. Gifford,in the river Ouse, the "Bedford river" into which Bunyan tells ushe once fell out of a boat, and barely escaped drowning. This wasabout the year 1653. The exact date is uncertain. Bunyan nevermentions his baptism himself, and the church books of Gifford'scongregation do not commence till May, 1656, the year afterGifford's death. He was also admitted to the Holy Communion, whichfor want, as he deemed, of due reverence in his first approach toit, became the occasion of a temporary revival of his oldtemptations. While actually at the Lord's Table he was "forced tobend himself to pray" to be kept from uttering blasphemies againstthe ordinance itself, and cursing his fellow communicants. Forthree-quarters of a year he could "never have rest or ease" fromthis shocking perversity. The constant strain of beating off thispersistent temptation seriously affected his health. "CaptainConsumption," who carried off his own "Mr. Badman," threatened hislife. But his naturally robust constitution "routed his forces,"and brought him through what at one time he anticipated would provea fatal illness. Again and again, during his period ofindisposition, the Tempter took advantage of his bodily weakness toply him with his former despairing questionings as to his spiritualstate. That seemed as bad as bad could be. "Live he must not; diehe dare not." He was repeatedly near giving up all for lost. Buta few words of Scripture brought to his mind would revive hisdrooping spirits, with a natural reaction on his physical health,and he became "well both in body and mind at once." "My sicknessdid presently vanish, and I walked comfortably in my work for Godagain." At another time, after three or four days of deepdejection, some words from the Epistle to the Hebrews "came boltingin upon him," and sealed his sense of acceptance with an assurancehe never afterwards entirely lost. "Then with joy I told my wife,'Now I know, I know.' That night was a good night to me; I neverhad but few better. I could scarce lie in my bed for joy and peaceand triumph through Christ."

During this time Bunyan, though a member of the Bedfordcongregation, continued to reside at Elstow, in the little thatchedwayside tenement, with its lean-to forge at one end, alreadymentioned, which is still pointed out as "Bunyan's Cottage." Therehis two children, Mary, his passionately loved blind daughter, andElizabeth were born; the one in 1650, and the other in 1654. Itwas probably in the next year, 1655, that he finally quitted hisnative village and took up his residence in Bedford, and became adeacon of the congregation. About this time also he must have lostthe wife to whom he owed so much. Bunyan does not mention theevent, and our only knowledge of it is from the conversation of hissecond wife, Elizabeth, with Sir Matthew Hale. He sustained alsoan even greater loss in the death of his friend and comrade, Mr.Gifford, who died in September, 1655. The latter was succeeded bya young man named John Burton, of very delicate health, who wastaken by death from his congregation, by whom he was much beloved,in September, 1660, four months after the restoration of theMonarchy and the Church. Burton thoroughly appreciated Bunyan'sgifts, and stood sponsor for him on the publication of his firstprinted work. This was a momentous year for Bunyan, for in it Dr.Brown has shown, by a "comparison of dates," that we may probablyplace the beginning of Bunyan's ministerial life. Bunyan was nowin his twenty-seventh year, in the prime of his manly vigour, witha vivid imagination, ready speech, minute textual knowledge of theBible, and an experience of temptation and the wiles of the evilone, such as few Christians of double his years have ever reached."His gifts could not long be hid." The beginnings of that whichwas to prove the great work of his life were slender enough. AsMr. Froude says, "he was modest, humble, shrinking." The membersof his congregation, recognizing that he had "the gift ofutterance" asked him to speak "a word of exhortation" to them. Therequest scared him. The most truly gifted are usually the leastconscious of their gifts. At first it did much "dash and abash hisspirit." But after earnest entreaty he gave way, and made one ortwo trials of his gift in private meetings, "though with muchweakness and infirmity." The result proved the correctness of hisbrethren's estimate. The young tinker showed himself no commonpreacher. His words came home with power to the souls of hishearers, who "protested solemnly, as in the sight of God, that theywere both affected and comforted by them, and gave thanks to theFather of mercies for the grace bestowed on him." After this, asthe brethren went out on their itinerating rounds to the villagesabout, they began to ask Bunyan to accompany them, and though he"durst not make use of his gift in an open way," he wouldsometimes, "yet more privately still, speak a word of admonition,with which his hearers professed their souls edified." That he hada real Divine call to the ministry became increasingly evident,both to himself and to others. His engagements of this kindmultiplied. An entry in the Church book records "that BrotherBunyan being taken off by the preaching of the gospel" from hisduties as deacon, another member was appointed in his room. Hisappointment to the ministry was not long delayed. After "somesolemn prayer with fasting," he was "called forth and appointed apreacher of the word," not, however, so much for the Bedfordcongregation as for the neighbouring villages. He did not however,like some, neglect his business, or forget to "show piety at home."He still continued his craft as a tinker, and that with industryand success. "God," writes an early biographer, "had increased hisstores so that he lived in great credit among his neighbours." Hespeedily became famous as a preacher. People "came in by hundredsto hear the word, and that from all parts, though upon sundry anddivers accounts," - "some," as Southey writes, "to marvel, and someperhaps to mock." Curiosity to hear the once profane tinker preachwas not one of the least prevalent motives. But his word proved aword of power to many. Those "who came to scoff remained to pray.""I had not preached long," he says, "before some began to betouched and to be greatly afflicted in their minds." His successhumbled and amazed him, as it must every true man who compares thework with the worker. "At first," he says, "I could not believethat God should speak by me to the heart of any man, still countingmyself unworthy; and though I did put it from me that they shouldbe awakened by me, still they would confess it and affirm it beforethe saints of God. They would also bless God for me - unworthywretch that I am - and count me God's instrument that showed tothem the way of salvation." He preached wherever he foundopportunity, in woods, in barns, on village greens, or even inchurches. But he liked best to preach "in the darkest places ofthe country, where people were the furthest off from profession,"where he could give the fullest scope to "the awakening andconverting power" he possessed. His success as a preacher mighthave tempted him to vanity. But the conviction that he was but aninstrument in the hand of a higher power kept it down. He saw thatif he had gifts and wanted grace he was but as a "tinkling cymbal.""What, thought I, shall I be proud because I am a sounding brass?Is it so much to be a fiddle?" This thought was, "as it were, amaul on the head of the pride and vainglory" which he found "easilyblown up at the applause and commendation of every unadvisedchristian." His experiences, like those of every public speaker,especially the most eloquent, were very varied, even in the courseof the same sermon. Sometimes, he tells us, he would begin "withmuch clearness, evidence, and liberty of speech," but, before hehad done, he found himself "so straitened in his speech before thepeople," that he "scarce knew or remembered what he had beenabout," and felt "as if his head had been in a bag all the time ofthe exercise." He feared that he would not be able to "speak senseto the hearers," or he would be "seized with such faintness andstrengthlessness that his legs were hardly able to carry him to hisplace of preaching." Old temptations too came back. Blasphemousthoughts formed themselves into words, which he had hard work tokeep himself from uttering from the pulpit. Or the tempter triedto silence him by telling him that what he was going to say wouldcondemn himself, and he would go "full of guilt and terror even tothe pulpit door." "'What,' the devil would say, 'will you preachthis? Of this your own soul is guilty. Preach not of it at all,or if you do, yet so mince it as to make way for your own escape.'"All, however, was in vain. Necessity was laid upon him. "Woe," hecried, "is me, if I preach not the gospel." His heart was "sowrapped up in the glory of this excellent work, that he countedhimself more blessed and honoured of God than if he had made himemperor of the Christian world." Bunyan was no preacher of vaguegeneralities. He knew that sermons miss their mark if they hit noone. Self-application is their object. "Wherefore," he says, "Ilaboured so to speak the word, as that the sin and person guiltymight be particularized by it." And what he preached he knew andfelt to be true. It was not what he read in books, but what he hadhimself experienced. Like Dante he had been in hell himself, andcould speak as one who knew its terrors, and could tell also of theblessedness of deliverance by the person and work of Christ. Andthis consciousness gave him confidence and courage in declaring hismessage. It was "as if an angel of God had stood at my back." "Ohit hath been with such power and heavenly evidence upon my own soulwhile I have been labouring to fasten it upon the conscience ofothers, that I could not be contented with saying, 'I believe andam sure.' Methought I was more than sure, if it be lawful so toexpress myself, that the things I asserted were true."

Bunyan, like all earnest workers for God, had his disappointmentswhich wrung his heart. He could be satisfied with nothing lessthan the conversion and sanctification of his hearers. "If I werefruitless, it mattered not who commanded me; but if I werefruitful, I cared not who did condemn." And the result of a sermonwas often very different from what he anticipated: "When I thoughtI had done no good, then I did the most; and when I thought Ishould catch them, I fished for nothing." "A word cast in by-the-bye sometimes did more execution than all the Sermon besides." Thetie between him and his spiritual children was very close. Thebacksliding of any of his converts caused him the most extremegrief; "it was more to me than if one of my own children were goingto the grave. Nothing hath gone so near me as that, unless it wasthe fear of the loss of the salvation of my own soul."

A story, often repeated, but too characteristic to be omitted,illustrates the power of his preaching even in the early days ofhis ministry. "Being to preach in a church in a country village inCambridgeshire" - it was before the Restoration - "and the publicbeing gathered together in the churchyard, a Cambridge scholar, andnone of the soberest neither, inquired what the meaning of thatconcourse of people was (it being a week-day); and being told thatone Bunyan, a tinker, was to preach there, he gave a lad twopenceto hold his horse, saying he was resolved to hear the tinker prate;and so he went into the church to hear him. But God met him thereby His ministry, so that he came out much changed; and would by hisgood will hear none but the tinker for a long time after, hehimself becoming a very eminent preacher in that countryafterwards." "This story," continues the anonymous biographer, "Iknow to be true, having many times discoursed with the man." Tothe same ante-Restoration period, Dr. Brown also assigns theanecdote of Bunyan's encounter, on the road near Cambridge, withthe university man who asked him how he dared to preach not havingthe original Scriptures. With ready wit, Bunyan turned the tableson the scholar by asking whether he had the actual originals, thecopies written by the apostles and prophets. The scholar replied,"No," but they had what they believed to be a true copy of theoriginal. "And I," said Bunyan, "believe the English Bible to be atrue copy, too." "Then away rid the scholar."

The fame of such a preacher, naturally, soon spread far and wide;all the countryside flocked eagerly to hear him. In some places,as at Meldreth in Cambridgeshire, and Yelden in his own county ofBedfordshire, the pulpits of the parish churches were opened tohim. At Yelden, the Rector, Dr. William Dell, the Puritan Masterof Caius College, Cambridge, formerly Chaplain to the army underFairfax, roused the indignation of his orthodox parishioners byallowing him - "one Bunyon of Bedford, a tinker," as he isignominiously styled in the petition sent up to the House of Lordsin 1660 - to preach in his parish church on Christmas Day. But,generally, the parochial clergy were his bitterest enemies. "WhenI first went to preach the word abroad," he writes, "the Doctorsand priests of the country did open wide against me." Many wereenvious of his success where they had so signally failed. In thewords of Mr. Henry Deane, when defending Bunyan against the attacksof Dr. T. Smith, Professor of Arabic and Keeper of the UniversityLibrary at Cambridge, who had come upon Bunyan preaching in a barnat Toft, they were "angry with the tinker because he strove to mendsouls as well as kettles and pans," and proved himself more skilfulin his craft than those who had graduated at a university. Envy isever the mother of detraction. Slanders of the blackest dyeagainst his moral character were freely circulated, and as readilybelieved. It was the common talk that he was a thorough reprobate.Nothing was too bad for him. He was "a witch, a Jesuit, ahighwayman, and the like." It was reported that he had "his missesand his bastards; that he had two wives at once," &c. Such chargesroused all the man in Bunyan. Few passages in his writings showmore passion than that in "Grace Abounding," in which he defendshimself from the "fools or knaves" who were their authors. He"begs belief of no man, and if they believe him or disbelieve himit is all one to him. But he would have them know how utterlybaseless their accusations are." "My foes," he writes, "havemissed their mark in their open shooting at me. I am not the man.If all the fornicators and adulterers in England were hanged by theneck till they be dead, John Bunyan would be still alive. I knownot whether there is such a thing as a woman breathing under thecopes of the whole heaven but by their apparel, their children, orby common fame, except my wife." He calls not only men, butangels, nay, even God Himself, to bear testimony to his innocencein this respect. But though they were so absolutely baseless, nay,the rather because they were so baseless, the grossness of thesecharges evidently stung Bunyan very deeply.

So bitter was the feeling aroused against him by the marvelloussuccess of his irregular ministry, that his enemies, even beforethe restoration of the Church and Crown, endeavoured to put the armof the law in motion to restrain him. We learn from the churchbooks that in March, 1658, the little Bedford church was in troublefor "Brother Bunyan," against whom an indictment had been laid atthe Assizes for "preaching at Eaton Socon." Of this indictment wehear no more; so it was probably dropped. But it is an instructivefact that, even during the boasted religious liberty of theProtectorate, irregular preaching, especially that of the muchdreaded Anabaptists, was an indictable offence. But, as Dr. Brownobserves, "religious liberty had not yet come to mean liberty allround, but only liberty for a certain recognized section ofChristians." That there was no lack of persecution during theCommonwealth is clear from the cruel treatment to which Quakerswere subjected, to say nothing of the intolerance shown toEpiscopalians and Roman Catholics. In Bunyan's own county ofBedford, Quakeresses were sentenced to be whipped and sent toBridewell for reproving a parish priest, perhaps well deserving ofit, and exhorting the folks on a market day to repentance andamendment of life. "The simple truth is," writes Robert Southey,"all parties were agreed on the one catholic opinion that certaindoctrines were not to be tolerated:" the only points of differencebetween them were "what those doctrines were," and how farintolerance might be carried. The withering lines are familiar tous, in which Milton denounces the "New Forcers of Conscience," whoby their intolerance and "super-metropolitan andhyperarchiepiscopal tyranny," proved that in his proverbial words,"New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large" -

"Because you have thrown off your prelate lord,And with stiff vows renounce his liturgyDare ye for this adjure the civil swordTo force our consciences that Christ set free!"

How Bunyan came to escape we know not. But the danger he was inwas imminent enough for the church at Bedford to meet to pray "forcounsail what to doe" in respect of it.

It was in these closing years of the Protectorate that Bunyan madehis first essay at authorship. He was led to it by a long andtiresome controversy with the Quakers, who had recently found theirway to Bedford. The foundations of the faith, he thought, werebeing undermined. The Quakers' teaching as to the inward lightseemed to him a serious disparagement of the Holy Scriptures, whiletheir mystical view of the spiritual Christ revealed to the souland dwelling in the heart, came perilously near to a denial of thehistoric reality of the personal Christ. He had had publicdisputations with male and female Quakers from time to time, at theMarket Cross at Bedford, at "Paul's Steeple-house in Bedford town,"and other places. One of them, Anne Blackley by name, openly badehim throw away the Scriptures, to which Bunyan replied, "No; forthen the devil would be too hard for me." The same enthusiastcharged him with "preaching up an idol, and using conjuration andwitchcraft," because of his assertion of the bodily presence ofChrist in heaven.

The first work of one who was to prove himself so voluminous anauthor, cannot but be viewed with much interest. It was a littlevolume in duodecimo, of about two hundred pages, entitled "SomeGospel Truths Opened, by that unworthy servant of Christ, JohnBunyan, of Bedford, by the Grace of God, preacher of the Gospel ofHis dear Son," published in 1656. The little book, which, as Dr.Brown says, was "evidently thrown off at a heat," was printed inLondon and published at Newport Pagnel. Bunyan being entirelyunknown to the world, his first literary venture was introduced bya commendatory "Epistle" written by Gifford's successor, JohnBurton. In this Burton speaks of the young author - Bunyan wasonly in his twenty-ninth year - as one who had "neither thegreatness nor the wisdom of the world to commend him," "not beingchosen out of an earthly but out of a heavenly university, theChurch of Christ," where "through grace he had taken three heavenlydegrees, to wit, union with Christ, the anointing of the Spirit,and experience of the temptations of Satan," and as one of whose"soundness in the faith, godly conversation, and his ability topreach the Gospel, not by human aid, but by the Spirit of theLord," he "with many other saints had had experience." This bookmust be pronounced a very remarkable production for a youngtravelling tinker, under thirty, and without any literary ortheological training but such as he had gained for himself afterattaining to manhood. Its arrangement is excellent, the argumentsare ably marshalled, the style is clear, the language pure and wellchosen. It is, in the main, a well-reasoned defence of thehistorical truth of the Articles of the Creed relating to theSecond Person of the Trinity, against the mystical teaching of thefollowers of George Fox, who, by a false spiritualism, sublimatedthe whole Gospel narrative into a vehicle for the representation oftruths relating to the inner life of the believer. No one ever hada firmer grasp than Bunyan of the spiritual bearing of the facts ofthe recorded life of Christ on the souls of men. But he would notsuffer their "subjectivity" - to adopt modern terms - to destroytheir "objectivity." If the Son of God was not actually born ofthe Virgin Mary, if He did not live in a real human body, and inthat body die, lie in the grave, rise again, and ascend up intoheaven, whence He would return - and that Bunyan believed shortly -in the same Body He took of His mortal mother, His preaching wasvain; their faith was vain; they were yet in their sins. Those who"cried up a Christ within, IN OPPOSITION to a Christ without," whoasserted that Christ had no other Body but the Church, that theonly Crucifixion, rising again, and ascension of Christ was thatWITHIN the believer, and that every man had, as an inner light, ameasure of Christ's Spirit within him sufficient to guide him tosalvation, he asserted were "possessed with a spirit of delusion;"deceived themselves, they were deceiving others to their eternalruin. To the refutation of such fundamental errors, substituting amystical for an historical faith, Bunyan's little treatise isaddressed; and it may be truly said the work is done effectually.To adopt Coleridge's expression concerning Bunyan's greater andworld-famous work, it is an admirable "SUMMA THEOLOIAEEVANGELICAE," which, notwithstanding its obsolete style and old-fashioned arrangement, may be read even now with advantage.

Bunyan's denunciation of the tenets of the Quakers speedilyelicited a reply. This was written by a certain Edward Burrough, ayoung man of three and twenty, fearless, devoted, and ardent in thepropagation of the tenets of his sect. Being subsequently throwninto Newgate with hundreds of his co-religionists, at the same timethat his former antagonist was imprisoned in Bedford Gaol, Burroughmet the fate Bunyan's stronger constitution enabled him to escape;and in the language of the times, "rotted in prison," a victim tothe loathsome foulness of his place of incarceration, in the yearof the "Bartholomew Act," 1662.

Burrough entitled his reply, "The Gospel of Peace, contended for inthe Spirit of Meekness and Love against the secret opposition ofJohn Bunyan, a professed minister in Bedfordshire." His openingwords, too characteristic of the entire treatise, display butlittle of the meekness professed. "How long, ye crafty fowlers,will ye prey upon the innocent? How long shall the righteous be aprey to your teeth, ye subtle foxes! Your dens are in darkness,and your mischief is hatched upon your beds of secret whoredoms?"Of John Burton and the others who recommended Bunyan's treatise, hesays, "They have joined themselves with the broken army of Magog,and have showed themselves in the defence of the dragon against theLamb in the day of war betwixt them." We may well echo Dr. Brown'swish that "these two good men could have had a little free andfriendly talk face to face. There would probably have been betterunderstanding, and fewer hard words, for they were really not sofar apart as they thought. Bunyan believed in the inward light,and Burrough surely accepted an objective Christ. But failing tosee each other's exact point of view, Burrough thunders at Bunyan,and Bunyan swiftly returns the shot."

The rapidity of Bunyan's literary work is amazing, especially whenwe take his antecedents into account. Within a few weeks hepublished his rejoinder to Friend Burrough, under the title of "AVindication of Gospel Truths Opened." In this work, which appearedin 1667, Bunyan repays Burrough in his own coin, styling him "aproved enemy to the truth," a "grossly railing Rabshakeh, whobreaks out with a taunt and a jeer," is very "censorious and uttersmany words without knowledge." In vigorous, nervous language,which does not spare his opponent, he defends himself fromBurrough's charges, and proves that the Quakers are "deceivers.""As for you thinking that to drink water, and wear no hatbands isnot walking after your own lusts, I say that whatsoever man do makea religion out of, having no warrant for it in Scripture, is butwalking after their own lusts, and not after the Spirit of God."Burrough had most unwarrantably stigmatized Bunyan as one of "thefalse prophets, who love the wages of unrighteousness, and throughcovetousness make merchandise of souls." Bunyan calmly replies,"Friend, dost thou speak this as from thy own knowledge, or did anyother tell thee so? However that spirit that led thee out this wayis a lying spirit. For though I be poor and of no repute in theworld as to outward things, yet through grace I have learned by theexample of the Apostle to preach the truth, and also to work withmy hands both for mine own living, and for those that are with me,when I have opportunity. And I trust that the Lord Jesus who bathhelped me to reject the wages of unrighteousness hitherto, willalso help me still so that I shall distribute that which God hathgiven me freely, and not for filthy lucre's sake." Thefruitfulness of his ministry which Burrough had called in question,charging him with having "run before he was sent," he refuses todiscuss. Bunyan says, "I shall leave it to be taken notice of bythe people of God and the country where I dwell, who will testifythe contrary for me, setting aside the carnal ministry with theirretinue who are so mad against me as thyself."

In his third book, published in 1658, at "the King's Head, in theOld Bailey," a few days before Oliver Cromwell's death, Bunyan leftthe thorny domain of polemics, for that of Christian exhortation,in which his chief work was to be done. This work was anexposition of the parable of "the Rich Man and Lazarus," bearingthe horror-striking title, "A Few Sighs from Hell, or the Groans ofa Damned Soul." In this work, as its title would suggest, Bunyan,accepting the literal accuracy of the parable as a description ofthe realities of the world beyond the grave, gives full scope tohis vivid imagination in portraying the condition of the lost. Itcontains some touches of racy humour, especially in the similes,and is written in the nervous homespun English of which he wasmaster. Its popularity is shown by its having gone through nineeditions in the author's lifetime. To take an example or two ofits style: dealing with the excuses people make for not hearingthe Gospel, "O, saith one, I dare not for my master, my brother, mylandlord; I shall lose his favour, his house of work, and so decaymy calling. O, saith another, I would willingly go in this way butfor my father; he chides me and tells me he will not stand myfriend when I come to want; I shall never enjoy a pennyworth of hisgoods; he will disinherit me - And I dare not, saith another, formy husband, for he will be a-railing, and tells me he will turn meout of doors, he will beat me and cut off my legs;" and thenturning from the hindered to the hinderers: "Oh, what red lineswill there be against all those rich ungodly landlords that so keepunder their poor tenants that they dare not go out to hear the wordfor fear that their rent should be raised or they turned out oftheir houses. Think on this, you drunken proud rich, and scornfullandlords; think on this, you madbrained blasphemous husbands, thatare against the godly and chaste conversation of your wives; alsoyou that hold your servants so hard to it that you will not sparethem time to hear the Word, unless it will be where and when yourlusts will let you." He bids the ungodly consider that "theprofits, pleasures, and vanities of the world" will one day "givethee the slip, and leave thee in the sands and the brambles of allthat thou hast done." The careless man lies "like the smith's dogat the foot of the anvil, though the fire sparks flee in his face."The rich man remembers how he once despised Lazarus, "scrubbedbeggarly Lazarus. What, shall I dishonour my fair sumptuous andgay house with such a scabbed creephedge as he? The Lazaruses arenot allowed to warn them of the wrath to come, because they are notgentlemen, because they cannot with Pontius Pilate speak Hebrew,Greek, and Latin. Nay, they must not, shall not, speak to them,and all because of this."

The fourth production of Bunyan's pen, his last book before histwelve years of prison life began, is entitled, "The Doctrine ofLaw and Grace Unfolded." With a somewhat overstrained humilitywhich is hardly worthy of him, he describes himself in the title-page as "that poor contemptible creature John Bunyan, of Bedford."It was given to the world in May, 1659, and issued from the samepress in the Old Bailey as his last work. It cannot be said thatthis is one of Bunyan's most attractive writings. It is as hedescribes it, "a parcel of plain yet sound, true, and homesayings," in which with that clearness of thought and accuracy ofarrangement which belongs to him, and that marvellous acquaintancewith Scripture language which he had gained by his constant studyof the Bible, he sets forth the two covenants - the covenant ofworks, and the covenant of Grace - "in their natures, ends, bounds,together with the state and condition of them that are under theone, and of them that are under the other." Dr. Brown describesthe book as "marked by a firm grasp of faith and a strong view ofthe reality of Christ's person and work as the one Priest andMediator for a sinful world." To quote a passage, "Is thererighteousness in Christ? that is mine. Is there perfection in thatrighteousness? that is mine. Did He bleed for sin? It was formine. Hath He overcome the law, the devil, and hell? The victoryis mine, and I am come forth conqueror, nay, more than a conquerorthrough Him that hath loved me. . . Lord, show me continually inthe light of Thy Spirit, through Thy word, that Jesus that was bornin the days of Caesar Augustus, when Mary, a daughter of Judah,went with Joseph to be taxed in Bethlehem, that He is the veryChrist. Let me not rest contented without such a faith that is sowrought even by the discovery of His Birth, Crucifying Death,Blood, Resurrection, Ascension, and Second - which is His Personal- Coming again, that the very faith of it may fill my soul withcomfort and holiness." Up and down its pages we meet with vividreminiscences of his own career, of which he can only speak withwonder and thankfulness. In the "Epistle to the Reader," whichintroduces it, occurs the passage already referred to describinghis education. "I never went to school to Aristotle or Plato, butwas brought up at my father's house in a very mean condition, amonga company of poor countrymen." Of his own religious state beforehis conversion he thus speaks: "When it pleased the Lord to beginto instruct my soul, He found me one of the black sinners of theworld. He found me making a sport of oaths, and also of lies; andmany a soul-poisoning meal did I make out of divers lusts, such asdrinking, dancing, playing, pleasure with the wicked ones of theworld; and so wedded was I to my sins, that thought I to myself, 'Iwill have them though I lose my soul.'" And then, after narratingthe struggles he had had with his conscience, the alternations ofhope and fear which he passed through, which are more fullydescribed in his "Grace Abounding," he thus vividly depicts thefull assurance of faith he had attained to: "I saw through gracethat it was the Blood shed on Mount Calvary that did save andredeem sinners, as clearly and as really with the eyes of my soulas ever, methought, I had seen a penny loaf bought with a penny. .. O let the saints know that unless the devil can pluck Christ outof heaven he cannot pull a true believer out of Christ." In astriking passage he shows how, by turning Satan's temptationsagainst himself, Christians may "Get the art as to outrun him inhis own shoes, and make his own darts pierce himself." "What!didst thou never learn to outshoot the devil in his own bow, andcut off his head with his own sword as David served Goliath?" Thewhole treatise is somewhat wearisome, but the pious reader willfind much in it for spiritual edification.

CHAPTER IV.

We cannot doubt that one in whom loyalty was so deep and fixed aprinciple as Bunyan, would welcome with sincere thankfulness thetermination of the miserable interval of anarchy which followed thedeath of the Protector and the abdication of his indolent andfeeble son, by the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charlesthe Second. Even if some forebodings might have arisen that withthe restoration of the old monarchy the old persecuting laws mightbe revived, which made it criminal for a man to think for himselfin the matters which most nearly concerned his eternal interests,and to worship in the way which he found most helpful to hisspiritual life, they would have been silenced by the promise,contained in Charles's "Declaration from Breda," of liberty totender consciences, and the assurance that no one should bedisquieted for differences of opinion in religion, so long as suchdifferences did not endanger the peace and well-being of the realm.If this declaration meant anything, it meant a breadth oftoleration larger and more liberal than had been ever granted byCromwell. Any fears of the renewal of persecution must begroundless.

But if such dreams of religious liberty were entertained they werespeedily and rudely dispelled, and Bunyan was one of the first tofeel the shock of the awakening. The promise was coupled with areference to the "mature deliberation of Parliament." With such apromise Charles's easy conscience was relieved of allresponsibility. Whatever he might promise, the nation, andParliament which was its mouthpiece, might set his promise aside.And if he knew anything of the temper of the people he wasreturning to govern, he must have felt assured that any scheme ofcomprehension was certain to be rejected by them. As Mr. Froudehas said, "before toleration is possible, men must have learnt totolerate toleration," and this was a lesson the English nation wasvery far from having learnt; at no time, perhaps, were they furtherfrom it. Puritanism had had its day, and had made itself generallydetested. Deeply enshrined as it was in many earnest and devouthearts, such as Bunyan's, it was necessarily the religion not ofthe many, but of the few; it was the religion not of the commonherd, but of a spiritual aristocracy. Its stern condemnation ofall mirth and pastime, as things in their nature sinful, of whichwe have so many evidences in Bunyan's own writings; its repressionof all that makes life brighter and more joyous, and the soursanctimoniousness which frowned upon innocent relaxation, hadrendered its yoke unbearable to ordinary human nature, and men tookthe earliest opportunity of throwing the yoke off and trampling itunder foot. They hailed with rude and boisterous rejoicings therestoration of the Monarchy which they felt, with a true instinct,involved the restoration of the old Church of England, the churchof their fathers and of the older among themselves, with its largerindulgence for the instincts of humanity, its widercomprehensiveness, and its more dignified and decorous ritual.

The reaction from Puritanism pervaded all ranks. In no class,however, was its influence more powerful than among the countrygentry. Most of them had been severe sufferers both in purse andperson during the Protectorate. Fines and sequestrations hadfallen heavily upon them, and they were eager to retaliate on theiroppressors. Their turn had come; can we wonder that they wereeager to use it? As Mr. J. R. Green has said: "The Puritan, thePresbyterian, the Commonwealthsman, all were at their feet. . .Their whole policy appeared to be dictated by a passionate spiritof reaction. . . The oppressors of the parson had been theoppressors of the squire. The sequestrator who had driven the onefrom his parsonage had driven the other from his manor-house. Bothhad been branded with the same charge of malignity. Both hadsuffered together, and the new Parliament was resolved that bothshould triumph together."

The feeling thus eloquently expressed goes far to explain theharshness which Bunyan experienced at the hands of theadministrators of justice at the crisis of his life at which wehave now arrived. Those before whom he was successively arraignedbelonged to this very class, which, having suffered most severelyduring the Puritan usurpation, was least likely to showconsideration to a leading teacher of the Puritan body. Nor werereasons wanting to justify their severity. The circumstances ofthe times were critical. The public mind was still in an excitablestate, agitated by the wild schemes of political and religiousenthusiasts plotting to destroy the whole existing framework bothof Church and State, and set up their own chimerical fabric. Wecannot be surprised that, as Southey has said, after all the nationhad suffered from fanatical zeal, "The government, renderedsuspicious by the constant sense of danger, was led as much by fearas by resentment to seventies which are explained by thenecessities of self-defence," and which the nervous apprehensionsof the nation not only condoned, but incited. Already Churchmen inWales had been taking the law into their own hands, and manifestingtheir orthodoxy by harrying Quakers and Nonconformists. In the Mayand June of this year, we hear of sectaries being taken from theirbeds and haled to prison, and brought manacled to the QuarterSessions and committed to loathsome dungeons. Matters had advancedsince then. The Church had returned in its full power andprivileges together with the monarchy, and everything went backinto its old groove. Every Act passed for the disestablishment anddisendowment of the Church was declared a dead letter. Those ofthe ejected incumbents who remained alive entered again into theirparsonages, and occupied their pulpits as of old; the survivingbishops returned to their sees; and the whole existing statute lawregarding the Church revived from its suspended animation. No newenactment was required to punish Nonconformists and to silencetheir ministers; though, to the disgrace of the nation and itsparliament, many new ones were subsequently passed, with ever-increasing disabilities. The various Acts of Elizabeth suppliedall that was needed. Under these Acts all who refused to attendpublic worship in their parish churches were subject to fines;while those who resorted to conventicles were to be imprisoned tillthey made their submissions; if at the end of three months theyrefused to submit they were to be banished the realm, and if theyreturned from banishment, without permission of the Crown, theywere liable to execution as felons. This long-disused sword wasnow drawn from its rusty sheath to strike terror into the hearts ofNonconformists. It did not prove very effectual. All the true-hearted men preferred to suffer rather than yield in so sacred acause. Bunyan was one of the earliest of these, as he proved oneof the staunchest.

Early in October, 1660, the country magistrates meeting in Bedfordissued an order for the public reading of the Liturgy of the Churchof England. Such an order Bunyan would not regard as concerninghim. Anyhow he would not give obeying it a thought. One of thethings we least like in Bunyan is the feeling he exhibits towardsthe Book of Common Prayer. To him it was an accursed thing, thebadge and token of a persecuting party, a relic of popery which heexhorted his adherents to "take heed that they touched not" if theywould be "steadfast in the faith of Jesus Christ." Nothing couldbe further from his thoughts than to give any heed to themagistrates' order to go to church and pray "after the form ofmen's inventions."

The time for testing Bunyan's resolution was now near at hand.Within six months of the king's landing, within little more than amonth of the issue of the magistrate's order for the use of theCommon Prayer Book, his sturdy determination to yield obedience tono authority in spiritual matters but that of his own consciencewas put to the proof. Bunyan may safely be regarded as at thattime the most conspicuous of the Nonconformists of theneighbourhood. He had now preached for five or six years withever-growing popularity. No name was so rife in men's mouths ashis. At him, therefore, as the representative of his brothersectaries, the first blow was levelled. It is no cause of surprisethat in the measures taken against him he recognized the directagency of Satan to stop the course of the truth: "That old enemyof man's salvation," he says, "took his opportunity to inflame thehearts of his vassals against me, insomuch that at the last I waslaid out for the warrant of a justice." The circumstances werethese, on November 12, 1660, Bunyan had engaged to go to the littlehamlet of Lower Samsell near Harlington, to hold a religiousservice. His purpose becoming known, a neighbouring magistrate,Mr. Francis Wingate, of Harlington House, was instructed to issue awarrant for his apprehension under the Act of Elizabeth. Themeeting being represented to him as one of seditious personsbringing arms, with a view to the disturbance of the public peace,he ordered that a strong watch should be kept about the house, "asif," Bunyan says, "we did intend to do some fearful business to thedestruction of the country." The intention to arrest him oozedout, and on Bunyan's arrival the whisperings of his friends warnedhim of his danger. He might have easily escaped if he "had beenminded to play the coward." Some advised it, especially thebrother at whose house the meeting was to take place. He, "livingby them," knew "what spirit" the magistrates "were of," before whomBunyan would be taken if arrested, and the small hope there wouldbe of his avoiding being committed to gaol. The man himself, as a"harbourer of a conventicle," would also run no small danger of thesame fate, but Bunyan generously acquits him of any selfish objectin his warning: "he was, I think, more afraid of (for) me, than of(for) himself." The matter was clear enough to Bunyan. At thesame time it was not to be decided in a hurry. The time fixed forthe service not being yet come, Bunyan went into the meadow by thehouse, and pacing up and down thought the question well out. "Ifhe who had up to this time showed himself hearty and courageous inhis preaching, and had made it his business to encourage others,were now to run and make an escape, it would be of an ill savour inthe country. If he were now to flee because there was a warrantout for him, would not the weak and newly-converted brethren beafraid to stand when great words only were spoken to them. Godhad, in His mercy, chosen him to go on the forlorn hope; to be thefirst to be opposed for the gospel; what a discouragement it mustbe to the whole body if he were to fly. No, he would never by anycowardliness of his give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme thegospel." So back to the house he came with his mind made up. Hehad come to hold the meeting, and hold the meeting he would. Hewas not conscious of saying or doing any evil. If he had to sufferit was the Lord's will, and he was prepared for it. He had a fullhour before him to escape if he had been so minded, but he wasresolved "not to go away." He calmly waited for the time fixed forthe brethren to assemble, and then, without hurry or any show ofalarm, he opened the meeting in the usual manner, with prayer forGod's blessing. He had given out his text, the brethren had justopened their Bibles and Bunyan was beginning to preach, when thearrival of the constable with the warrant put an end to theexercise. Bunyan requested to be allowed to say a few partingwords of encouragement to the terrified flock. This was granted,and he comforted the little company with the reflection that it wasa mercy to suffer in so good a cause; and that it was better to bethe persecuted than the persecutors; better to suffer as Christiansthan as thieves or murderers. The constable and the justice'sservant soon growing weary of listening to Bunyan's exhortations,interrupted him and "would not be quiet till they had him away"from the house.

The justice who had issued the warrant, Mr. Wingate, not being athome that day, a friend of Bunyan's residing on the spot offered tohouse him for the night, undertaking that he should be forthcomingthe next day. The following morning this friend took him to theconstable's house, and they then proceeded together to Mr.Wingate's. A few inquiries showed the magistrate that he hadentirely mistaken the character of the Samsell meeting and itsobject. Instead of a gathering of "Fifth Monarchy men," or otherturbulent fanatics as he had supposed, for the disturbance of thepublic peace, he learnt from the constable that they were only afew peaceable, harmless people, met together "to preach and hearthe word," without any political meaning. Wingate was now at anonplus, and "could not well tell what to say." For the credit ofhis magisterial character, however, he must do something to showthat he had not made a mistake in issuing the warrant. So he askedBunyan what business he had there, and why it was not enough forhim to follow his own calling instead of breaking the law bypreaching. Bunyan replied that his only object in coming there wasto exhort his hearers for their souls' sake to forsake their sinfulcourses and close in with Christ, and this he could do and followhis calling as well. Wingate, now feeling himself in the wrong,lost his temper, and declared angrily that he would "break the neckof these unlawful meetings," and that Bunyan must find securitiesfor his good behaviour or go to gaol. There was no difficulty inobtaining the security. Bail was at once forthcoming. The realdifficulty lay with Bunyan himself. No bond was strong enough tokeep him from preaching. If his friends gave them, their bondswould be forfeited, for he "would not leave speaking the word ofGod." Wingate told him that this being so, he must be sent to gaolto be tried at the next Quarter Sessions, and left the room to makeout his mittimus. While the committal was preparing, one whomBunyan bitterly styles "an old enemy to the truth," Dr. Lindall,Vicar of Harlington, Wingate's father-in-law, came in and began"taunting at him with many reviling terms," demanding what right hehad to preach and meddle with that for which he had no warrant,charging him with making long prayers to devour widows houses, andlikening him to "one Alexander the Coppersmith he had read of,""aiming, 'tis like," says Bunyan, "at me because I was a tinker."The mittimus was now made out, and Bunyan in the constable's chargewas on his way to Bedford, when he was met by two of his friends,who begged the constable to wait a little while that they might usetheir interest with the magistrate to get Bunyan released. After asomewhat lengthened interview with Wingate, they returned with themessage that if Bunyan would wait on the magistrate and "saycertain words" to him, he might go free. To satisfy his friends,Bunyan returned with them, though not with any expectation that theengagement proposed to him would be such as he could lawfully take."If the words were such as he could say with a good conscience hewould say them, or else he would not."

After all this coming and going, by the time Bunyan and his friendsgot back to Harlington House, night had come on. As he entered thehall, one, he tells us, came out of an inner room with a lightedcandle in his hand, whom Bunyan recognized as one William Foster, alawyer of Bedford, Wingate's brother-in-law, afterwards a fiercepersecutor of the Nonconformists of the district. With a simulatedaffection, "as if he would have leapt on my neck and kissed me,"which put Bunyan on his guard, as he had ever known him for "aclose opposer of the ways of God," he adopted the tone of one whohad Bunyan's interest at heart, and begged him as a friend to yielda little from his stubbornness. His brother-in-law, he said, wasvery loath to send him to gaol. All he had to do was only topromise that he would not call people together, and he should beset at liberty and might go back to his home. Such meetings wereplainly unlawful and must be stopped. Bunyan had better follow hiscalling and leave off preaching, especially on week-days, whichmade other people neglect their calling too. God commanded men towork six days and serve Him on the seventh. It was vain for Bunyanto reply that he never summoned people to hear him, but that ifthey came he could not but use the best of his skill and wisdom tocounsel them for their soul's salvation; that he could preach andthe people could come to hear without neglecting their callings,